


The Ballad of Sunflowers and Edelweiss

by kitchenparty



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Human AU, M/M, Prolly angst, rated m for future sexy times, slow burn???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:14:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitchenparty/pseuds/kitchenparty
Summary: Burgers, pianos, pickpockets, romance, pizza, violins, and the breakdown that started it all. The story of how Roderich Edelstein learned to love and how Alfred Jones overcame his greatest fear, himself.
Relationships: America/Austria (Hetalia), Canada/France (Hetalia), England/Japan (Hetalia), Germany/North Italy (Hetalia), South Italy/Spain (Hetalia)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've never used ao3 before so please bear with me if I input something weirdly.
> 
> This is my second work of fanfiction I've ever been brave enough to post online (I'm also publishing this story on fanfiction.net) and I'm open to criticism! It is my hope to one day make stories professionally, so while I work on my own I like to use this as a way to build my skill.
> 
> I cannot and will not promise regular updates. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Let me paint you a picture of the most beautiful man I know.

He was sunshine in the worst way possible and he never knew when to quit, never knew when to stop and think it through. When he did do something right, it was always prefaced with something much more wrong and he undoubtedly despised himself for it. 

But it wasn’t in his nature to show them what was wrong, oh no. Rain, shine, or total desolation, his smile was plastered on his face as a beacon of courage and unfathomable insecurity.

Nothing could knock him down, except the slightest breeze in the wrong direction. His paper facade slowly torn away and replaced, layers and layers thick. If you knew him, you didn’t. If you wanted to, you couldn’t. I don’t think he even knew the person he was underneath his armor. 

So when the tower came tumbling down, I’m not sure anyone was expecting it to fall in my direction. They all told me it wasn’t worth my time to try and clean up his mess, and I almost believed them. I really did. 

And as I look at him now, napping ten feet away, red-rimmed glasses skewed across his face and his hair an untamable mess, I know for certain that if you put me through it all again I would not hesitate in the slightest. 

So I write this story for you, Alfred. You are my symphony. 

Love, Roderich


	2. Molto Aditamente

I suppose the best way to go about this is to start at the beginning and fill in the gaps as we come to them. I’m not going to waste anyone’s time here by explaining years of backstory just yet.

So, the beginning. 

I was just finishing with tidying my kitchen following dinner, and as the last cup was placed in the cabinet I heard a knock on my door. Opening it, I was greeted with a dripping wet, heaving, just-ran-here-through-this-rainstorm-with-no-umbrella, Alfred.

“Hey, Rod- Roderich! Rodster! Man, I’m more out of shape than I thought,” he said between pants, trying to catch his breath as he continued to get poured on since there was no awning above my apartment door. 

Appalled at the amount of rainwater dripping off of him onto my  _ freshly scrubbed and waxed floors _ , I opted to ignore his outlandishly inappropriate nickname for me and scoffed at him. 

“Well, better tell me what you want. If you’re here to borrow money again because you and my  _ dummkopf  _ brother spent yours already, I’m afraid I will have to decli-”

“Thanks for the offer dude, but that’s not why I’m here. Can I come in? Thanks~” he said, cutting me off and ignoring me as he simply  _ waltzed  _ into my apartment, tracking  _ more water _ across my floors. 

As I began telling him off for invading my home like that, he simply ignored me and began taking off his shoes, at least having the decency to leave them on the doormat to dry before announcing to me that he was going to take a shower.

“It’s alright if I wash my clothes too while I’m at it, right? Thanks Roderich, you’re the best!”

“No, I never gave you permission to-!”

He shut the door. 

_ Click! _

And locked it.

_ Sigh… _

Well, the only option I had aside from breaking my own door down and pulling him out of my bathroom was to clean up his trail of muddy water and wait for him to be done. And you could rest assured that Alfred would know the full extent of my wrath once he was done. Make no mistake about that. My anger was so great in fact, I may have even needed to break out the Chopin to fully express my fury.

Setting about my task of cleaning up the water, I could hear the shower running now, Alfred’s voice soon piping up above the noise and drowning out my thoughts with a  _ very  _ poorly sung rendition of Country Roads.  _ God _ , he was off-key.  _ And  _ off-tempo. John Denver must have been turning in his grave. 

Something seemed… off about his voice though. Something I wasn’t quite sure why I had picked up on. I’d heard Alfred singing before, several times in fact. Perhaps it was the noises from the washing machine and the shower distorting it? That must’ve been it. Now then, back to this mess…

***

As I put away my cleaning supplies, finally satisfied with my work of saving my precious floors, I noticed I wasn’t hearing Alfred’s voice in the shower anymore. Maybe the idiot had finally realized his vocal “talents” weren’t appreciated here. And why  _ was  _ he here, anyway? Maybe he or Gilbert hadn’t paid their water bill and it was shut off. I hoped that this wouldn’t become a regular occurrence, what with them having moved into an apartment down the road no less than a month ago. Did this happen frequently when they were living near Ludwig as well? I supposed that was what happened when you put two completely irresponsible people together and expected them to pay bills on time. 

As I turned towards the kitchen to put on some coffee since I assumed this would be a long evening ahead of me, I could hear the water no longer running and decided I would make a cup for Alfred while I was at it. Decaf for him, though. Lord knows I couldn’t handle Alfred Jones any more hyper than he already was. 

As the coffee started to brew I was startled out of my thoughts by the sound of Alfred walking into the kitchen behind me….

_ Completely nude _ , save for the small towel loosely wrapped around his waist. S-So loosely in fact, it may even have been slipping…

He noticed though, and caught it. Which was good. Yes. Yes, it… It was a good thing he caught it. It would have been horribly,  _ horribly  _ inappropriate had my stupid brother’s boyfriend been caught naked in my kitchen. 

“Like what you see, huh?~” he mused, yanking me from my thoughts again. “I know it can be hard to distract yourself from such heroic hotness, my friend, but I am already a taken man.”

Turning away quickly, I scoffed at him. “No, I do not ‘ _ like what I see _ ’, I am simply disgusted by your lack of manners. It’s not polite to stand naked in someone else’s home. So please, put some clothes on or I will have no choice but to ask you to leave.”

“Actually, I came out here to ask if I could borrow some of your clothes. I can, can’t I? Man, thanks, you’re the best! I really owe you one after this, pal!”

And once again deciding for me, and ignoring my protests, he took off in his towel and locked my bedroom door behind him. 

No, Chopin would not be  _ nearly  _ enough to display this rage. Even  _ Tchaikovsky  _ was cutting it close. I may have even needed to resort to physical violence, but that was so exhausting…

Hearing the door knock again, frantically and annoyingly, my headache growing with each pound, I groaned as I made my way to open it.

And behind it was a dripping wet, heaving, just-ran-here-through-this-rainstorm-with-no-umbrella, Gilbert. 

“Is Al here?” he yelled, before I had a chance to say anything.

“He is, yes. Are you here to collect him? Because I’ve had quite enough of bein-”

“What the  _ hell  _ are you doing here, Beilschmidt,” I heard Alfred’s voice behind me, cold and angry.

I turned towards him, seeing he was wearing my only pair of sweatpants (I had been planning on ridding myself of the horrid things for  _ months _ , so I suppose it was alright if he wore them) and one of my solid, button-down shirts, only half buttoned as he attempted what I could only imagine was to glare lasers through Gilbert’s skull. Turning back to my brother, I could see his expression was much the same.

Not wanting to get myself caught up in whatever…  _ this  _ was, I stepped back from the door to let Gilbert through, pretending I didn’t notice all the mud and water he was tracking onto my floors that  _ I had just cleaned… _

Resigning myself to my fate, I sighed and decided to simply wait until the two bumbling morons were gone to clean my floor again. 

As I stepped out of the room and into my kitchen to get coffee, I could hear loud, angry bickering from Alfred and Gilbert. So Alfred had come here because they were  _ fighting _ ? Why hadn’t he gone to one of his own brothers’ houses? They lived in town, I thought. Why hadn’t he gone to Ludwig’s? Or  _ anywhere  _ other than my own home? I had been planning a very relaxing evening of baking and scoffing at others’ terrible fashion senses online. Taking a sip of my coffee, I could hear their voices becoming louder and more emotional. 

“Well, it isn’t  _ my  _ fault!”

“Yes it is, you albino jackass! You even admitted it yourself like, two seconds ago!”

“Whatever, because running away to my prissy brother’s house is the  _ least  _ heroic thing you could do!”

“Yeah? Like coming here just to argue with me more is something cool people  _ do _ , I guess!” 

And it continued like that, back and forth. Mein  _ gott _ this was exhausting…

***

As I took a glance at my long-since cold coffee, I could finally hear their shouting coming to a close. Looking over at the clock, I wondered how many hours of my life I had wasted sitting here waiting for them. Only two? Well, it certainly  _ felt  _ more like twelve…

I could hear shoving and one last shout from Alfred before my door was slammed so hard I was surprised it hadn’t come right back off the hinges. Then there were footsteps, getting quieter until I heard a soft thud indicating someone sat on my couch. I’d assumed it was Alfred that was still here, although I’d have preferred for him to have left too. And as I stepped back into the living room to tell him so, I was beaten to it when Alfred saw me and smiled.

“Sorry about that! We were just having a bit of a disagreement! Hey, you’re cool if I crash here for a few days, right? Nice! Thanks, buddy! Now I’ll really owe you one!” 

“No, you most certainly can  _ not  _ ‘crash’ in my home for a few days! You have your own apartment just down the road! Go continue your screaming match there, because I’ve had enough of all this commotion today! It has been extremely tiring, and I would like to resume whatever few seconds I have remaining of my evening in  _ peace _ . So, if you could kindly get your clothing, I’ll be happy to escort you to the door!”

“Haha, silly Roderich!  _ I _ don’t live down the street! Gilbert does! And I need a place to stay! So thanks for letting me crash here, dude!”

Even back then, though I barely knew him at the time, I could hear something desperate in his voice. And as I took a long look at him, it struck me just how  _ exhausted  _ he looked. Like he was putting every ounce of effort he had into not falling apart. Like he was scared, even. And confused. 

And so, with a heavy sigh, I caved.

“Oh, very well. But don’t you have brothers of your own you could stay with? I’m afraid I don’t have much room here.”

“Well Francis is on his honeymoon in Paris right now, and the bus that goes near Artie’s house doesn’t run this time of night.” 

“I see… Well, as long as you don’t make a mess and stay out of my way, I suppose you can sleep on my couch tonight. We can discuss you staying any longer once it’s morning.”

“All right, thanks dude! I promise, you won’t regret this!” and he grinned, already stretching himself out across my sofa. 

As soon as I had cleaned up the water  _ again _ , I laid a spare blanket and a small pillow next to him on the coffee table, already tired with the whole situation as I bid him a good night and went to my own room.

  
And faintly,  _ faintly _ … I swore I could hear him crying until he fell asleep.


	3. Sforzando

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the german is accurate I checked like 7 different translation sites-

I awoke to a muffled, yet still rather loud, crash. Followed by an equally muffled, yet loud, shout. 

Forgetting about my glasses, I sprang out of bed and made my way to the source of the noise as quickly as possible, running through my apartment.

“Roderich, stop!”

Which I did, only when I felt a sharp pain in my foot shoot up the whole way through my leg. With a gasp I backed away from the doorway, the pain growing as the shard of glass dug deeper into my foot. 

“ _ Scheisse! _ ”

“Shit, Roderich, oh god, okay, uhm… H-Here, don’t move, I’ll come to you, just- Fuck, I didn’t think you’d run straight into it…”

I could vaguely see the small puddle of blood forming under my foot, letting Alfred help me to the bathroom as he sat me down on top of the toilet lid. 

“Damn, that got you good… This is gonna hurt, so try not to move around too much…” I could hear him rummaging through my drawers until he found a set of tweezers, bracing myself as he prepared to pull the glass out of my foot. “Alright, three, two, one…”

  
  


***

I winced and hissed as Arthur inspected my foot, checking for any smaller pieces of glass Alfred may have missed. Alfred had called him as soon as my foot had stopped bleeding, not sure it was serious enough to warrant going to the emergency room. 

“It’s not as bad as Alfred made it sound over the phone, so you won’t need any stitches.” Arthur said, much to my relief. He glanced up at me as he began to bandage my wound. “Your foot is still going to be in pain for a while though, so try not to use it too much. And although it’s nothing major, I’d still recommend having it looked at within the next week or so. Just to ensure there’s no infection.” He reached into his bag for a moment, pulling out his card and handing it to me. “My practice is located nearby if you don’t already have a physician. Give me a ring if you need me to come by again.”

He turned to Alfred and smacked him across the back of the head. “And you, none of this would’ve happened if you’d just called me last night instead of buggering this poor man needlessly! Kiku or I could’ve picked you up! You’re lucky I don’t have any appointments until this afternoon or I wouldn’t have been able to help him! So if you insist on continuing whatever this ridiculous spat is going on with Gilbert, make sure you leave Roderich out of it!”

“Like hell you would’ve picked me up, I’ve known you longer than a day, Artie! You would’ve just told me to piss off and find somewhere else to stay, so I decided not to waste my time! And I didn’t  _ mean  _ to drop the pitcher on the floor, just like I didn’t mean for Roderich to cut his foot up like that!”

And once again, they continued to scream back and forth. This was turning out to be very similar to yesterday, and it wasn’t even 8 o’clock in the morning. Exhausted and thoroughly enraged with the seemingly constant commotion in my apartment since Alfred had shown up the night before, I snapped at them.

“Can you two please stop bickering?! Ever since Alfred arrived here last night I have been plagued with a constant headache from your lack of manners and from your endless screaming! I attempted to be a good host by allowing you to sleep here overnight, but I now believe you have overstayed your welcome! I have had it up to here with this nonsense, and kindly request that you both leave my home  _ at once! _ ”

Both of the brothers turned and looked at me, eyebrows raised in surprise at my outburst. Well, at least they had stopped yelling. 

They both gaped for a few seconds and then began stuttering guilty apologies, glaring at each other when they kept speaking at the same time. Neither of them really succeeded in a true apology though, the best being Alfred’s with a “we were totally being rude just now, bro, no hard feelings.”

After another few moments of awkward silence, Arthur cleared his throat and grabbed his jacket from the chair by the door. 

“Right then, guess I’m off. Remember what I said about your foot, Roderich, and… erm… W-Well, try to rest…” and with a small nod he left the room, shooting another glare at Alfred as he shut the door behind him. I looked at Alfred, who was still standing a few feet away from the bed. 

“Do you still need something? Because whatever it is I will have to say no. Please leave.” I glared at him, waiting for him to finally leave me alone so I could go back to sleep.

He opened his mouth for a moment, as if to say something, but then shook his head and looked down at the floor, opening the door and shutting it behind him. I could still hear him in my house for a few minutes, presumably gathering his belongings, before I heard my front door shut again.

Finally,  _ finally  _ able to relax, I got back in bed and hoped this would all soon just feel like a bad dream. 

***

It had been a week since I had last seen or heard from Alfred or Gilbert, so I assumed they had patched things up or decided to finally leave me alone. My foot had all but healed, walking didn’t cause me much pain anymore. I did end up making an appointment at Arthur’s practice, and I received a much more formal apology for his behavior while I was there. Not from Arthur himself, but from his husband Kiku, who also worked as a doctor there. 

Life went back to normal it seemed, work picked up when I got a new client and I wasn’t able to finish all that needed done before it was time to go home. Well, I had the whole weekend to wrap it up at least, maybe I would even stop by the café while I worked…

My thoughts halted when I saw Alfred on the stairs in front of my apartment, half-asleep on my doorstep with a package of some sort in his lap. His head jerked up when he heard me approaching and he flashed me one of his signature grins as he stood up. 

“Rodster, my man, how’s it going? I know my apology is a bit on the late side, but it took a whole week for this to be delivered. I wanted to say sorry for breaking your pitcher last week! You forgive me, right? Thanks dude, you’re a real friend!” he shoved the package into my hands and grinned again. “I hope that’s the right one, it looked really similar in the pictures online. Anyway, I gotta run, I’m taking over Feli’s shift at the café and I’m already late. Catch up with you later!” And just like that, he was gone, leaving me just as bewildered as I got every single time I interacted with him. 

I nearly dropped the package reaching for my keys, opening the door without further incident however and setting my bag on the couch before opening the box. Inside was a pitcher very similar to the one he had shattered, the main difference being that the original had once belonged to my mother and was probably not even half the price of what Alfred must’ve spent on this. The original was glass, but this one was pure crystal, wrapped with loads of bubble wrap and tissue paper to keep it intact. Where had he gotten the money for this? Did Gilbert borrow some from Ludwig? Did they steal it from somewhere? Could I even accept such a gift? 

Not knowing what to do, I set the pitcher on the kitchen table and took a deep breath. As if on autopilot, my legs carried me to the piano. Some casual playing always helped me clear my head in times like these, and I hadn’t had a chance to play all week. Sitting down and positioning my feet at the pedals, I let my fingers do the thinking as they immediately began to glide across the keys. My thoughts whisked away in a whirlwind of Mozart, I simply inhaled and exhaled in time with the music. 

The Piano Sonata in C major. It was always the first piece my fingers came back to, the first one I had ever mastered. It brought me back to simpler times, when my father was alive. Before my mother remarried, before Gilbert and Ludwig and Alfred and crystal pitchers and mud on my floors. 

My father was my first teacher. I had only recently turned six years old, and my first piano concert was less than a week away. I didn’t remember much of my father, but I remembered the piano lessons. He was strict, efficient, and accepted nothing short of perfection. Even so, I remembered our piano lessons fondly. I had great fun in learning the chords and nothing made me happier than seeing the pride on my father’s face each time I played a piece correctly. 

We were still living in Austria at the time, and the grand piano stood in the corner of the formal sitting room. My father, being an entertainer, often had guests over and threw frequent parties. It was during one of these parties where I watched him play a short piece on the piano and was able to play it almost exactly just from watching his fingers. I was four years old at the time, and my parents were thrilled that they had a musical prodigy for a son. From that day forward my father gave me lessons daily, and sometimes we would spend hours in the sitting room playing. 

Just over a month following the concert, my father died suddenly of a heart attack. The doctors blamed it on his heavy smoking. We moved to the United States shortly after the funeral, to be closer to my mother’s remaining family. My strongest lasting memory of my father being that piano lesson a week before my concert. The day I finally got it perfect. 

_ You’ll do fine, Roderich,  _ he promised me. 

_ Du schaffst das schon _ .

***

I always lost track of time while playing like this, finally letting my fingers come to a stop almost a full hour later. Deciding to accept the pitcher instead of returning it to Alfred, I stood up to make myself some iced tea before returning to my work. For some unknown reason, Alfred’s grin crept into my mind as I poured the tea into the glass. 

I took my tea back to the living room, getting comfortable on the couch before pulling out my paperwork. Gathering all the necessary information on new clients and setting up their accounts was always a tedious and exhausting process. Turning the television on for some background noise, I got to work. Ignoring every time that  _ damned grin  _ popped into my head...


End file.
